Committed
Every Sunday, acclaimed illustrator Colleen Doran — whose credits include her creator-owned comic-book series, “A Distant Soil” – posts a piece of fan art in her blog. This week, she posted a sketch I did of The Victory Streak. You can see it here.
The timing was uncannily appropriate, as just two days prior I had resolved to stop screwing around and commit to pursuing a career as a professional writer and illustrator. I had all but given up on the idea and was feeling increasingly miserable as a result. I didn’t make the connection until my girlfriend, the lovely Jeannie, did a one-woman intervention and helped me connect the dots.
I’m going to be taking the first step come Monday of next week, when I begin taking advantage of a weekly figure drawing “open studio” offered by the Steve Carpenter Studio in Rochester, N.Y. I discovered this resource last Friday when two of my friends — one of whom posts here under the nom de plume “Keef Yourick” — took Jeannie and I to see a gallery showing/open house. For just four bucks an hour — less if you pay ahead — you get to spend four hours drawing from live figure models and having your work critiqued.
Steve Carpenter is also one of the officers of the New York Figure Study Guild. It’s a wonderful organization that provides weekly critiques, gallery showings of members’ work, and more. Come my next paycheck, I’ll be joining the guild as well.
I feel like a college student again, compiling a shopping list of art supplies as I get ready to pack my little art bin and head off to class once a week.
I am also embarking on what I anticipate will be a very lengthy period of self-study in all phases of illustration. I expect it will take a long period of really hard work to get my skills up to a professional level. But to paraphrase JFK, we do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard.
September 12th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
Good for you. Hopefully this will be a very enjoyable process for you and spark a few stronger fires in both your drive with your current work as well as your future artistic growth. There are already aspects of your work that remind me of very early Steve Rude and Steve’s level of realism in figure proportions due to his desire to work from life studies has always been more pleasing to my eye than the grotesque exaggerations that have become more widely popular in some circles in the last 20 years.
Now if we could only get you into a class that studies cadavers (as the really old school greats did) so that when you finally see the light you can move towards making gorgeous zombie comics…
September 12th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
Fracture several tibias with this, my friend!
I also am not crazy with some of the art in some of the books, even going back all the way to the weirder New Mutants issues. I want the art to go with the story hand in hand, an artistic Hansel and Gretel walking down the path. Some of these just get so weird that you have no idea what’s going on.
Ya know, a zombie comic with the five of us involved…I shiver with how cool that could be.
September 15th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
Well, I guess you’re drawing as I type this… So how was it?
September 19th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
Yeah, my thinkings exactly.
September 25th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
good for you Bill. Your wilingness to improve yourself always impresses me. From my experience taking a course at something you like can be at the same time frustrating and inspiring.
Sean: I want the art to go with the story hand in hand”
In your case probably munching the hand as he walks along.
October 3rd, 2008 at 7:04 pm
Well, sometimes I need a snack….
October 5th, 2008 at 10:20 pm
Late to the party as usual but best of luck on this. I always envy people like yourself with genuine artistic talent. I wish I could do what you do. I suppose not being able to has forced me to develop skills in other areas but I’d gladly trade those growing experiences for the ability to be able to draw something remotely like what I can see in my head.
October 27th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
[...] Mulligan recently posted a comment in the previous thread in which he told me, “I always envy people like yourself with genuine [...]